Calvert Vaux

There is little record of Vaux’s childhood and youth in England. His father was a doctor and apparently provided a comfortable living for his family. Vaux attended a private primary school until he was nine and then began architectural training as an apprentice in the London office of Lewis N. Cottingham, an early advocate of the revival of Gothic architectural styles. Vaux became a skilled draftsman, and in 1850, a London gallery exhibition of his watercolors of continental landscapes attracted the attention of Andrew Jackson Downing, who had come to England to find an assistant to run a new architectural department in his own thriving landscape gardening practice. He recruited Vaux, then twenty-six, who seems to have welcomed the opportunity to escape the relative rigidity and stuffiness of English society.

During the two years that Calvert Vaux worked with Downing in Newburgh, New York, up the Hudson from Manhattan, he devoted most of his energy to designing “rural” house plans (thirteen of which are included in his 1857 book, Villas and Cottages). The “rustic” style of these houses (with pitched roofs, picturesque porches, and ornamented stone and wood work), complemented the “rural scenery” of Downing’s broad sweeping lawns, carefully placed specimen trees, and massed border plantings of shrubs and flowers. Vaux, who became Downing’s partner, also helped prepare plans for more formal public grounds at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., a project that probably inspired an article he wrote in 1852 for the Horticulturalist in which he called for government recognition and support of the arts. That summer Downing drowned in a steamboat accident. Vaux carried on his mentor’s architectural practice, working with another English architect, Frederick Clarke Withers. He married Mary McEntee, the sister of a Hudson Valley painter, then moved to New York City in 1856, where he became identified with the city’s artistic community — “the guild,” as he called it. He joined the National Academy of Design and the Century Club and in 1857 was a founding member of the American Institute of Architects.

To his advocacy of an American architecture that personified spirited “character,” Vaux brought the confident respectability of a bourgeois English upbringing and a deep personal respect for craft and skill. His Villas and Cottages reveals his intellectual debts to Ruskin and to Ralph Waldo Emerson as well as to Downing. Vaux, a personally devout man, became a liberal Unitarian. Like Ruskin’s, his appreciation of art and nature was grounded in their moral attributes, and like Ruskin, he believed that a skilled craftworker could express genuine artistic inspiration. But Calvert Vaux rejected Ruskin’s pessimistic assessment of the decline of art and craft in industrial societies and instead embraced Emerson’s optimism in the “self-reliant” capacity of Americans to create a new and vital culture.

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Walking Tour Overview

Duration: 2 hours

Book Risk Free: Free cancellation up to 24 hours in advance

Free reschedule or full refund in case of bad weather

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The walking tour covers all most beautiful sights of the southern half of Central Park. You will walk through some of the 58 miles of trails the park has to offer passing a lake, rocky outcrops, bridges, arches, sculptures and more.This tour takes you off the beaten path to sights both the bikes and pedicabs cannot reach - book here.

Bicycle Tour Overview

Duration: 2 hours

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The bicycle tour provides a complete journey through 843 acres of Central Park, guaranteeing that you will see the most out of any tour available. Your tour guide will provide background information, historical insight, and point out some of the most photogenic sites for you to capture photos!This tour covers about six miles in a casual, smooth pace with lots of stops for walking and photos. It's the ultimate way to discover Central Park - book here.

Pedicab Tour Overview

Duration: 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours

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The most comfortable way to explore Central Park. No need to walk or peddle - just sit, lay back and enjoy beautiful views and insightful commentary.This is a private tour for you and your party. A complete, relaxed, and personalized experience of Central Park. You can choose from 1 hour, 2 hours or 3 hours tour options. Custom pick up/drop off spots are available too - book here.

Combination Tour Overview

Duration: 2 hours or 3 hours

Book Risk Free: Free cancellation up to 48 hours in advance

Free reschedule or full refund in case of bad weather

Tickets: Both printed and mobile tickets accepted

The Combined Pedicab & Bicycle Tour is ideal for parties when one part part prefers to ride their own bikes, and another part prefers the comfort of the pedicab – on this tour all the group will stay together and have stops for walking and group pictures - book here.

About Central Park

Find all the information you need to enjoy your visit to New York City's iconic Central Park.

Attractions

Central Park features 843 acres filled with classic architecture, gorgeous statuary and up to date sports, educational and performance facilities. Besides all of this there is the world famous Central Park Zoo and Wildlife Center and the Children's Zoo.

Things To Do

From The Philharmonic on the Great Lawn to Shakespeare in the Park to SummerStage, Central Park offers an endless array of things to do, see, hear - and, with two full service restaurants and several cafes, taste. You can visit The Shakespeare Garden, take in a performance at the Swedish Cottage Marionette Theater, take a ride on the Carousel - or just sit and people watch at Bethesda Terrace!